Analysis and comment from Memphis, Tennessee, on media, politics, culture, science, my life and anything else that catches my eye.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Advice for Bloggers

Say Uncle, who blogs from Knoxville mostly on 2nd Amendment issues and Tennessee sippin' whiskey, has a great post filled with plenty of sage advice for bloggers and public relations types. An excerpt:

First, automatically sign me up for your newsletter. That’s right. I love getting newsletters I never, ever signed up for. I love it like all other spam. And that’s exactly how I treat these. I label them as spam in gmail. Gmail remembers that and also uses that to classify your item as spam by other readers.

Send me your off-topic press release plugging a political candidate or political position. This is particularly effective when you can read my blog and tell pretty quickly that I find that particular candidate to be a shit head and that particular position to be retarded.

With legal trouble and the resulting expenses potentially just one mouse click away, individuals and business entities creating, sanctioning and/or hosting blogs should apply basic risk management to the posting of a blog. Following are a few questions that every blogger should ask of the content contained in their blog:

• Do readers consider the blog a credible source of information and depend on it for up-to-date information (a matter of opinion that can be judged based on analytics and comments)?• Is information in the blog accurate or is the blog rife with mistakes and misstatements?• Have facts been checked (as required by due diligence standards) or have they simply been accepted as heard or read elsewhere without further verification?• Have facts been attributed to the original sources?• Are information sources reliable?• Are rumors and gossip printed as fact?• Are opinions labeled as such?• Are comments in news and opinion pieces fair and based in fact or could they be considered malicious, libelous or defamatory?• Is the information original work or plagiarized from another person or entity?• Has permission been secured to include content or photos found online (leads to the possible charges of copyright infringement)?• Are paid advertisements clearly separate from news and editorial content?• Are procedures in place to allow quick response if someone demands correction, retraction or removal of information?• Is the source of the blog clearly decipherable or is it written anonymously (hiding behind anonymity brings the veracity and intent of the blog into question)?